


to get a dream of life again

by aceofdiamonds



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 21:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1241506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>finnick takes your silence as an agreement and laughs, his toes digging into your hip. "we just need to wait a while. wait for the right sign and it'll all kick off. remember this conversation."</p>
            </blockquote>





	to get a dream of life again

you first hear whispers of a rebellion from who else but finnick odair, the boy who gathers up secrets like everyone else round here gathers money. he brings it up the night before the games when he’s stretched out on the couch beside you, his shirt gaping at the neck and his bare feet pressed against your thigh. you remember suddenly, brilliantly, the way you moved together once, twice, three times, all those years ago, a drunk and a product of the capitol’s dark underbelly. 

“what if there were no more games?”

and there’s the million dollar question. the question that you keep searching at the bottom of a bottle for. the question that you wish had been answered years and years ago, the make-believe world turning into a reality long before your birth. the question that could have -- except there’s no could about it; it _would_ have -- prevented that bastard snow killing your family, your mother, your brother, your girl. 

it's the sort of thing that could get you both killed if you don't watch who's listening. you carry on, hoping the capitol flies are too busy with tomorrow to care about what two old victors are talking about. 

“what if the sky was red?” 

finnick laughs once, the sound loud in the open room. he sits up and pours more whiskey and you lean forward, holding out your own glass. if the talk’s turning to this you’re going to need to be able to claim inebriated beyond sense when it all comes out. 

“it is sometimes,” he says, and it takes you a moment to pick up where you left off. “in the mornings it can be as red as the blood pouring out of those kids’ throats year after year.” 

you don’t see many mornings. you shrug. 

“i’m serious, haymitch. the big ones have been talking, heavensbee’s men. there’s people out there who want things to be different.” 

“and how do they plan on changing things? bombing the capitol?”

you roll your head on the back of the couch to look at finnick who's staring at you with something fierce in his eyes, something that wants to fight. your gaze flickers down to his mouth, you know that smirk, you're comfortable with that smirk. 

“that's too dirty, haymitch. no, how do you feel about a rebellion?” 

you feel apprehensive. you feel like it should have been done years ago. you feel like there’s nothing past talking, there’s no harm if nothing comes of it. 

finnick takes your silence as an agreement and laughs, his toes digging into your hip. "we just need to wait a while. wait for the right sign and it'll all kick off. remember this conversation."

you finish your drink. 

 

 --

 

that year your two kids die in the initial bloodbath. you can’t say you’re surprised, they never showed much promise, but effie makes you dress up nice to meet the parents, like none of them saw this coming. 

you remember finnick’s words as the girl’s mother cries into her husband’s shoulder. a rebellion would bring this all to an end. or it could make it so much worse. a failed attempt to overthrow the capitol would bring unimaginable horrors onto the districts; snow’s all about instilling fear and power where he knows best, you’re a walking example of that.

a small, weak looking boy from district nine wins. you get the train back yourself and buy a case of white liquor from ripper. 

everything settles down for another year. 

 

\--

 

at a victor's meetup in district two to bring in the new year it seems district four and finnick's men aren't the only ones with change in mind. 

johanna finds you just before the clock strikes twelve. she grabs the glass from your hand and takes a gulp, licking her lips and smirking when you growl. "are you ready for this, haymitch?" 

you play dumb. you're not even sure you're playing. "ready for what, sweetheart?" 

she kisses you when the fireworks light up the sky, her lips wet and her tongue pushing into your mouth. it's not the first time you've been here, either. there's something about keeping it in the family, as the saying goes. she pulls back and blinks up at you. "something's going to happen, i can _feel_ it, can't you?" 

the direction her hand is moving you can definitely feel something, but you nod and keep to the matter at hand. "i'm glad to see you're so interested in politics." 

she laughs, then, and moves away. "i'm up for anything that makes a mess," she says over her shoulder.

 

\--

 

you sit in your big fancy house in district twelve and you wonder what it would’ve been like way back when. when the capitol didn’t exist, when the games didn't exist, when there was some form of democracy. you’ve read the history books, you know such a thing existed. 

if it did before why can’t it again. 

your mother comes into your head suddenly in the way she is wont to do when you bypass numb and fall into melancholy drunk. your kind, gentle mother who had hugged you goodbye on the morning of the second quarter quell and told you to be careful while your brother had clutched your knees and made them wet with his tears. your girl. annalise. she had kissed you and it had been so sweet that was when you had almost broken. 

they're not here now, see. and here you are with your drink and the deaths of dozens of children on your hands and you feel nothing but regret. 

you take a gulp of your liquor, the bitterness welcome, and when you grip the bottle too hard and it shatters you watch the blood run down your wrist and wonder just what it would take to put things in motion. 

 

\--

 

you get your answer the very next year when katniss everdeen steps up for her sister in a tragic display of love that has the crowd weeping. you watch from over the rim of your glass, your suit too tight under the arms, and you try not to smile but you can almost see the rumbling all around you, the cogs turning in these poor, broken people’s heads, and this when you remember finnick's words. things are changing, there's a feel of it in the air this morning.  

there's a problem, though. or, not a problem, but, as it all comes to play in the next couple of years, an unexpected bargaining chip, in events you never could have predicted. the problem is your boy, the kid, the boy with his heart on his sleeve. 

peeta mellark is good with words, astonishing, really, he shows that when he drops the unrequited love bomb to caesar in his interview, you think he could give finnick a run for his money -- in every manner of the saying --, but when the rumbles of revolution are building deep underground it's more than words needed to change a nation. they're helpful, of course, they're pretty damn essential, but you can't talk the talk and not walk the walk. 

your girl, katniss everdeen: the capitol's sweetheart after a week thanks to peeta and his golden declaration. she's got the walk, the fire. together they could be unstoppable, you reckon. 

which is partly why you listen when they tell you to stop drinking so much and help give them a fighting chance. you also listen because district twelve has been the mockery of panem for years but these kids, the girl on fire and the boy in love, they might just make people sit up and listen, too. 

they survive the first day, and then they survive the second; the sponsors are all but pouring in and you think you might just be in with a chance of winning this year. scratch that, you might be in with the chance of beating this fucked up system once and for all. you try not to hope too hard and instead pry the country's wants out of the girl in the cave by way of bread and water. it's a dirty ploy, maybe, but with all this fighting inside your head you never said you would play fair. not right now.   

a victor from district twelve, that's exactly what they need to fuel the masses. a girl on fire? even better. 

the tributes fall to eight, to six, to four, and then there's three left with your two still in the mix. history's in the making here, fuck the revolution, there's two kids from district twelve in the final showdown, the last time that happened was twenty four years ago. 

you lean forward in your chair and watch katniss offer peeta the berries and you think _that’s it, that’s my girl_. 

the anthem plays, the two victors are announced, and then quietly, without too many people knowing at all, the rebellion is _go go go_. 

 


End file.
